


stockholm syndrome

by brorotica



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mind Control, Mind Games, Rape/Non-con References, Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-26
Updated: 2012-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 15:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brorotica/pseuds/brorotica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>nick monroe steals dean away, but dean refuses to run. written for angst_bingo over on livejournal. second story for the set.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stockholm syndrome

**Author's Note:**

> references to a non-consensual relationship. Stockholm Syndrome. Some strong language, some kissing. No explicit sex.

Dean curls up in the passenger seat of the SUV, forehead pressed to the window and a heavy jacket around his shoulders. They’re in Alberta, some fifty miles from the Canada-US border, and Dean is feeling a certain amount of displacement. It’s snowing out, the small flakes sticking to the windshield, and while he usually likes the snow to some degree, right now it makes him feel ill. Sick in a way he can’t really define. It’s a persistent feeling, a burn in the pit of his stomach and a thrum through his veins that reminds him of the situation he’s in.

The man in the driver’s seat isn’t his brother, is not even a reasonable facsimile of his brother. He’s tall and handsome, sure, but he has a boyish look about him that Sam long ago outgrew, baby fat clinging to parts of his body. Places Dean’s gotten quite familiar with in the last week or so, ever since Nick stabbed Sam and left him for dead on the floor of that dingy motel.

Dean feels a sudden jolt of nausea at that memory, his eyes squeezing closed, but he can still see the streetlights with his eyes shut, the light permeating his skin. Sam is probably dead and Dean can’t even bury him, can’t even get back to his brother’s body. He clenches his fists and curls over himself, Nick immediately reaching out and running a hand through the short curly hair at the nape of his neck. “Sit up,” Nick says, and it’s in the soft, quiet voice that Dean’s begun to recognize as a tone Nick adopts when he expects Dean to obey.

Nick may own him but Dean doesn’t have to listen, not to everything. He stays hunched over, starting to taste the acid in his mouth. He’s going to vomit all over the plush leather interior of Nick’s no doubt stolen vehicle. “I said sit up,” Nick repeats, and his voice is darker somehow. Dean knows he’s frowning without being able to see his face. He stays still and then Nick’s grabbing him by the hair and yanking him up, his fingers slipping around Dean’s neck and coming to a rest on his windpipe. “You need to listen,” Nick says, almost reproachfully. Dean simply stares. “If you don’t listen, there’s no telling what might happen to you.”

“You won’t kill me,” Dean says, and the words are a strain, his voice hoarse. Nick’s found better uses for his mouth in the last few days. “You need me.”

“I don’t need you. I want you. Those are two very different things.” Nick isn’t watching the road, and Dean’s eyes flicker towards the windshield. He’s scared, but he hopes it doesn’t show.

“I have to piss.” Dean uses the most demure tone he has at his disposable and Nick lets go of his throat, pulling into a gas station parking lot after a while.

“Be quick,” Nick says, and as if to apologize, he presses a crumpled twenty dollar bill into his hand. “Get some food, too. You’ve got to be hungry.”

Dean looks at him for a moment before sliding out of the car and heading into the shop attached to the gas station, pausing just inside the door and watching Nick start to pump gas into the SUV before turning back towards the store. The girl behind the counter, who can’t be more than nineteen or twenty, watches him in shock for a few moments, and Dean stares back at her before heading to the restroom at the back of the store. He takes a piss quickly, knowing that Nick is no doubt timing him, and starts to wash his hands before he catches sight of himself in the mirror.

He looks awful, haggard and drawn, with dark bags under his eyes and a myriad of bruises covering his neck and the top of his chest, barely visible thanks to the neckline of his t-shirt. Thereare a few gray hairs woven through his light brown hair, and his eyes, which were once hazel, are now a dull brown, barely any life sparking behind them. Dean looks like a corpse. He stares at himself for a few moments before pushing back into the main part of the store, grabbing a few bottles of water and some chocolate bars from the shelves. He walked over to the girl to pay for the things, trying to ignore the bruises he’s starting to notice on his skin.

Dean casts a cautious look at Nick as he gets to the counter. The girl has everything rung up before she looks at him, hesitating to finish the transaction. “Do you need help?” she asks, and Dean simply stares at her.

“What?”

“Do you need help?” she repeats, looking like she isn’t sure what to do. “Is he abusing you?”

Dean just blinks. Feasibly, he could say yes. Nick has taken him away from his family, maimed- or worse, killed- his brother, and left him aching at all hours of the day. He hurts, and he hates how totally useless he feels. He can’t even fight it. When he tries to, there’s an awful pain in his stomach, a sort of clenching vice, and he doesn’t want to try to get away anymore. The need for freedom is fading every day. “No,” Dean finally whispers, his voice wavering slightly. “We’re cops. We get beat up a lot.”

The woman is unconvinced, Dean can see it in her eyes, and she starts to reach for him before seeming to realize that wouldn’t go over too well. “Are you sure? I can call the police.”

“It’s okay,” Dean says, trying to sound reassuring. He fails miserably. “How much is that going to be?”

He pays and leaves, walking back over to the car. Nick is cleaning the windshield, but he stops once he sees Dean approaching. He walks around the parked car and kisses Dean on the mouth, the constant, underlying taste of blood throwing Dean off for a moment. He kisses back despite himself, however, and presses the change into Nick’s hand. “Let’s go,” he says, glancing at Nick. “Please.”

“What was she saying to you?” Nick asks, fingers digging into Dean’s wrist. His anger doesn’t show on his face, but Dean can feel it radiating off Nick in waves.

Dean starts to lie but stops himself, licking his lips and trying to figure out out what to say. He wants to lie. He doesn’t want that girl in the gas station to get hurt because of Nick. But lying seems like a foreign thing right now, something is blocking him from skirting around the truth, so he swallows and looks Nick in the eyes. “She wanted to call the police,” he says, his stomach aching. This isn’t protection. This is awful, but he can’t stop himself from speaking. “I told her not to. Don’t do anything to her.” Dean knows that Nick can hurt her if he wants to, but apparently he doesn’t see the point in doing so, letting go of Dean’s wrist and stepping back towards the car.

“Let’s go,” he says, and Dean obeys. He doesn’t have a choice in the matter.

They drive for hours, until the night has faded and the sun is burning high in the sky, and Dean flits between deep sleep and half-awake drowsiness. His only constant is the thrum of the wheels underneath him and the knowledge that Nick is sitting beside him. When they finally stop, it’s in the parking lot of a run-down motel, Nick looking over at Dean and seeming a little apologetic. “We’re going to stay here for a while. We’ve been driving for a week. I think we’ll be okay.”

Dean simply nods, and he stays at the car while Nick goes into the lobby to get them a room. He could leave right now. He could open the door of the SUV and just run, run until he finds a cop or a hospital or someplace that would make this all better. Someplace where he could find out if Sam was alive. But Nick knows he won’t run, which is why he left Dean in the car, the doors unlocked and the engine running. It isn’t trust, but absolute conviction that Dean won’t go. He can’t go.

His chest clenches with the realization that he isn’t going to run. He loves Nick. Not loves him in the way he loved anyone else. Not the desperate love he had for Sam, the fatherly love he had for Bobby, the way he felt about Castiel and Jo and Ellen. He loves Nick in a sick, needy way. If he goes, he dies. Nick is his everything, that small string of poison connecting them in a fashion that Dean can never escape, not without killing himself.

And even though he’s died before, he’s terrified of doing it again. Dying means no Nick. The thought scares Dean. Nick comes back to the car and opens Dean’s door, leaning in. “You’re crying,” he says, running his thumb along Dean’s cheek. “Don’t.”

“Okay,” Dean murmurs, sliding out of the car. Nick takes his hand, squeezing slightly, and Dean knows that he can’t fucking get out of this, not now.

He pukes on the concrete of the motel’s parking lot and Nick doesn’t even flinch, rubbing his back gently before petting his hair. “That’s it,” he says, and Dean knows what he means. Now he can’t leave.

He can’t escape from this, not ever.


End file.
